Trekking Through the Frontier: The Sheriff’s Duty

Perhaps no man in this Territory has a better right to the title of 'tramp' than the gentlemanly sheriff of Whatcom County. That county is about as large as the whole State of Connecticut, and Sheriff Allen has to visit every part of it several times a year in the performance of his official duties. If it was only an open country, the task would be much lighter; but in place of good, level roads, where a man might travel horseback much of the way is over brushy trails and through a section so broken up by streams, or separated by broader tracts of water, that much of his travel is on foot, or in a canoe, varied by an occasional steamboat ride. Last week, when Sheriff Allen wished me to accompany him on a still more extensive tramp to summon grand and petit jurors for the first session of the District Court for Whatcom County, to be held at La Conner, I gladly accepted. We traveled from Whatcom to the Upper Nootsack crossing, then over Barnes Prairie to within one and a half miles of the British line; thence by a very bushy trail to the Linden settlement. From Linden to Clark’s crossing, a canoe was the conveyance used. The walk from there to the settlement on California Creek at the head of Semiahmoo Bay showed many signs of rapid improvement. Two years ago, there was not a settler for eight miles on this route; the trail was so dim as to be followed with great difficulty. Now, nearly every claim on the route is occupied, and several families will soon make it appear like an old-settled neighborhood.